Managing Zones
 

Sorry if this posted elsewhere, believe me when I say I've scoured these forums over the past week while getting my server up and going.

I've seen people use a startup.bat loading eqzones.exe zones ...this creates 5 dynamics.

I've also seen people set it to load each zone.exe for whatever zone they want.

I guess my question is, what is the difference? Is the second method loading static zones? If so, what exactly does static mean? I kinda figured it meant the mobs won't repop, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

When loading with the first method, I've came across the problem that I have no more zones.exe to load a zone for me, and hence, i've gotten booted. Is this normal?

How do you run your zones? What is the best method in your opinion? Does either one keep the errors minimal?

Thanks

Well, running eqlaunch will boot up (x) number of dynamic zones that will load when client needs then and quit when there are no clients in them. X can be definied in your DB to what ever you think your computer will handle. Dynamic zones are less memory intensive as they dont continue to use memory when no ones in them, as they just unboot and go away.

Static zones on the other hand are zones that are always up, always running, and never shut down. These are more for like hubs(nexus,PoK), cites (qeynos, freeport) that would have constant activites in them like NPC pathing and such. They function fine dynamically, but for added realism, you should make them static.

Dont confuse running zone.exe as being a static zone like I once did. zone.exe in itself is dynamic. Eqlaunch is to maintain order instead of running 70-80 zone.exes for your server. You could have eqlaunch run 50 zones, in one window, then run "zone.exe freeport" or however that command goes to boot up a static freeport zone. Adding the zone name flags the zone.exe as a static zone and it will keep that zone running. This could be mistaken, but I think thats how it works. Someone will of course come by and tell me its wrong if it is.

Hope that better explains the dynamic/static question you had.

From my experiences, you're right TechGuy. The other reason that I run static zones is for spawn activity. When a dynamic zone shuts down (when no one is in it), it seriously shuts down. This means that if a guild kills Trakanon on your server (just suppose), and sebilis is being launched dynamically, then that guild could zone out (everyone would have to zone out), wait a minute (while the zone shuts down), then zone back in (to load the zone back up) and Trakanon would be back up again (since he always comes up with the zone).

Since most servers will never see this problem, dynamic zones are fine for 99% of the servers, but static zones add a bit more eqlive feel.

Dax

Thanks guys, that answers my questions perfectly.

If you have Trak respawn that fast, even on a dynamic, then you've got a spawn table issue instead. It shouldn't matter or not if its static vs. dynamic. Sounds like you just need to change the respawn timers.

Even if the respawn timers are set high, the spawn still respawns when the zone boots up. The only way respawn timers are in effect is when the zone stays booted, since again, the zone boots up and automatically spawns the db entries. The only way around this would be for some sort of a state save that the zone did prior to closing, like last know spawn information. Then when the zone rebooted, it would use that information to spawn its self.

I swear this wasn't the case for me. Even if I used persistant zones or not because the db would keep track of repop timers. If the spawn had more than 1 possibility, yes...otherwise it would keep the timer.

Even after I dropped persistant zones, it would keep track of the timer. I got rid of persistant zone because of the pets would hang around after the case.

This is actually not accurate, but I am not one to contradict techguy84 =)

He likely has done far more analysis of the situation. My experience, even after an entire server reboot with dynamic zones, my bosses are still down because "timeleft" has a value > 0.

this is my experience too. the "timeleft" column in "spawn2" controls this. zone reboot should not be resetting this value. has someone placed a quest script in the zone that maybe causes trak to spawn (maybe a fubar'ed script handling the Bard epic version of trak, maybe?)

== sfisque

Maybe it applies to boss mobs, I personally was just refering to the likes of Qeynos and such. I know I could go through and wipe the zone, and when the zone reboots, everything is back to normal. You guys are probably right as far as boss mobs and "timeleft". Dunno from personal accounts though.

Is there s time left specified for all mobs and NPCs or just bosses?

every mob has it, but some mobs have very short respawns. i happen to remember that an older version of PEQ had almost every mob on a 3-6 min respawn (made doing vox and naggy very interesting, lmao)

i believe alot of respawn timers have been reset appropriately but i'm sure you can find more that might need calibration.

case in point, i'm working on PoSky, which is pretty much a full time job atm :P

== sfisque

I wasn't smiling about contradicting the big guy either. But that was something I took in tight consideration on my server. Since anyone can kill anything, there isn't much fun if all it takes is zoning out and going back in to get what you want. The time life is a pita, since you need to find a good balance and randomness to spawns. Took me forever to get my timers right...and now I'm about to change them again to make them a bit more available.

Surely you guys are not calling me the Big Guy? Oh why for thou earn such a title. Personnaly, you guys are well ahead of me in awhole lot of aspects of the emulator. I just got the setup details down pat for various Windows OS's and I like to go into extreme detail from time to time when solving a problem.

I /bow before you guys for not letting aneriel go mis-lead with my poor knowledge on the subject at hand.

But you sure make'dem perty pdf's!

Dam perty pdfs is actually a over statment for what I made. It has some nice things such as side captions and such, but its far from being top notch. It functions, and thats what I was wanting. I do wish it was Publication Worthy though, but I need to tweak some more and possible get some bookmarks in place before that happens.

Funny though, I just keep getting the itch to pick it back up and work on it some more, along with playing some EQ, but I keep getting side tracked with things and I always drop it. /sigh

Personally, I blame Bethesda and LethalEncounter for my lack of time here any more. If it wasnt for Oblivion and EQ2, I would be working on it still today.

sorry to bumb this...
but can someone actualy explain to me HOW to make zone to be Static? =)

Thank you much =)

Lets say you wanted to make the starting cities static- and akanon was the first one you were going to add;
first you need to make a new entry in table "launcher", you could call it "Cities" and the entry would look like
next you need to go to "launcher_zones" and add aknon;
You can add all the zones you want and classify them under "Cities"

Finally, you make an entry in your start up script;
depending on how many cities you launch you should delay the script so they won't run into each other;
heres what mine looks like;
launcher_zones
launcher;
I don't use a lot of the entries in launcher yet, but have them there incase I ever want to

wow thats a lot of data...

Thank you Angelox I will sure put it into good use =)

Thanks, this was very helpful to me as well.

And me. I wanted to know, but was afraid to bump this =P Thanks for taking one for the team, Chaos!

Just wondering here....but I have never edited anything besides my entires for the zones in the DB. Just one entry in "zones" for my dynamics, and my statics in the other. Works just fine with only editing those, question is, is that maybe not recommended? Just trying to see if I have unfinished editing to do. :)

My opinion;
I used to like statics mainly because they had some concept of time, didn't like the idea of loading into a dynamic zone always at 8:00 am. This has been solved with the recent night and day scripts.

The main reason for statics is for heavy traffic servers (servers with many players), but if you just have a server for yourself or you and a few players, dynamic takes up less memory and CPU use.

Other than that the only other reason I can think of for a static is, the zone remains the same even when you die/leave and come back. Maybe you were camping a named NPC and finally got him to pop, but got yourself killed; when you came back, he'd still be there. Since most (if not all) servers have rare spawns/drops much more common than on live, this is not needed either.

I just verified that with Emu v 7 boss mobs seem to have a timer regardless of zone type.

Killed dynamic Cazic, zoned into dynamic PoK, zoned back into PoF and Cazic was still down. Looking at his spawn timer in the DB (timeleft) it gets updated during each zone, even when zoning into a non related zone.

All of my zones are dynamic at the moment.

I really appreciate this topic, I do plan to use static zones once my server is moved to it's dedicated machine. But I do have a few questions myself.

Do static zones lead to faster zone times?

To run that many zones Angelox, what are the system specs of your server?

Yes, I notice that all the mobs that I kill in a dynamic zone remain dead. However, I also notice that they remain dead if nobody enters the zone for like 5 days, then goes back and the mob is still there, including dropped loot as well. But all mobs that are alive on the dynamic zones start up fresh. I noticed this in crushbone since the oracles in the throne room are still buffing their fellow orcs and thus don't even have enough mana to heal themselves.

You mean the corpse wont rot unless the zone is live? I hadn't even considered that. That's not necessarily a bad thing tho as the spawn timer shouldn't be dependent on the corpse. And let's say for example your group happens to be in an encounter, takes down the named, but wipes on the adds. With the corpse still available there is time to run back for the loot.

I do plan on running statics before I go live with the server. I would like to run as many as possible. The server is a 2xP4 @ 3.40 GHz with 2x256 MB of DDR, Running Win2Kpro SP4.

I'll do some testing and report back with resource consumption.

Yeah, but if your group or raid wipes, then good luck getting back to the corpse in time before it rots. Because when you go back to the zone, it repops everything, and then the decay timer starts.

ok, zones and launcher db stuff... I find on my server that I can have 6 dynamics set in the database and be fine. If i go to 7 then nobody can log into my server. If I have 5 dynamics and 1 static (using launcher_zones) it works, but if I try for 5 dynamics and 2 statics, agian nobody can log in. For some reason the magic number on my server is 6.

What can I do to remedy this? I would like there to be enough dynamic zones for people to be able to zone concurrently plus have several hubs/cities running statically. My processor and memory is hardly being touched as I have plenty of bandwidth and power. Any ideas?

For my setup:

Baseline Server Up 10 Dynamics - CPU 1% MEM 340MB

Odus 8 Zones: 18 Total - CPU 2% - MEM 408MB

Faydwer 14 Zones: 32 Total - CPU 4% - MEM 512MB

Antonica 54 Zones: 86 Total - CPU 3% - MEM 912MB

The server is also running MySQL, PHP, Apache, PCAnywhere, No-IP Updater, and some other services. This was tested while remoting in with PCAnywhere.

Summary: Zone times seem to be considerably faster with statics. I need more RAM!

So I'm a littel confused. for your Antonica 54 Zones. Is that 54 static and the rest dynamic?

Also what database are you using?

Yeah starting with 10 dynamic I then booted 8 odus zones, then 14 Faydwer zones, then 54 Antonica zones.

So for Antonica it was 54 statics on top of the 22 from Odus and Faydwer plus the base 10 dynamics for a total of 86.

What about the database?

?? What do you mean?

What database are you using?, peq maybe?

Yes, PEQ. Their Luclin, LoY release.